November 2016

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, today announced Amazon Wind Farm US Central 2, a new 189 megawatt (MW) wind farm in Hardin County, Ohio that will generate 530,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of wind energy annually starting in December 2017. Amazon engaged with EverPower, a leader in utility grade wind projects, to construct, own, and operate the new wind farm. This is AWS’s fifth renewable energy project in the United States (and its second wind farm in Ohio) that will deliver energy onto the electric grid powering AWS data centers located in the AWS US East (Ohio) and AWS US East (N. Virginia) Regions. When this newest wind farm is completed, AWS’s five renewable energy projects will generate a grand total of 2.2 million MWh of energy annually – enough to power almost 200,000 U.S. homes. For more information, go to https://aws.amazon.com/sustainability.

Cisco Systems CEO Chuck Robbins is set to rally solution provider partners at the networking leader's Cisco Partner Summit this week to take the cloud high road by focusing on multicloud and hybrid cloud rather than competing in head-to-head Infrastructure-as-a-Service warfare with Amazon Web Services, sources told CRN.

Cisco insiders say the new strategy represents a broad, far-reaching bid to be what the company is calling solution providers' "No. 1 preferred cloud vendor" by looking beyond just the IaaS opportunity and focusing on monetizing cloud across the entire spectrum of cloud -- public, private, hybrid or Software-as-a-Service.

Cloud backup and recovery have long been a priority for enterprises running production workloads in the cloud. But, today, as trends like the internet of things spur massive amounts of data for organizations to store and protect, IT teams must evolve their cloud backup and recovery strategy -- and make recovery a prime concern.

"Data protection is changing in the world of cloud computing, as IoT comes into play [and] big data systems come into play," says David Linthicum, SVP of Cloud Technology Partners, a cloud consulting firm based in Boston. "We have a lot more data to protect these days."...

The third-quarter results are in and Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a commanding lead in the worldwide public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) market. "In many ways, public IaaS is the poster child of cloud computing and in that segment Amazon/AWS absolutely dominates the market, with a worldwide market share of 45 percent in Q3," said John Dinsdale, chief analyst and research director at Synergy Research Group, in a research note sent to Datamation. It's an impressive feat, given how quickly rival cloud platforms are growing.

"That market share has been achieved despite Microsoft and Google both continuing to grow their cloud service revenues at well over 100 percent per year," continued Dinsdale. Nonetheless, Amazon is still more than twice as big as Salesforce, Microsoft and IBM combined...

Amazon.com said Monday that it’s commissioning a new wind farm in Ohio to help offset the power needs of its cloud computing business. Amazon Web Services, as the tech giant’s cloud computing division is known, has vowed to fulfill at least half of the energy needs of its big data centers with renewable energy by 2017.

That’s up from 40 percent in 2016, a goal that Amazon says it is on track to meet or exceed. The data centers that house the computing power and storage that Amazon and other cloud giants rent out have been called out by environmentalists as a growing source of emissions. Amazon’s new wind farm will be in Hardin County, Ohio, 70 miles northwest of Columbus, and when it opens in December 2017 it will be its second such facility in the state...

My grandparents worked with mules. While few contemporary readers are familiar with these crosses of male donkeys and female horses, US farming in the early twentieth century included a crucial role for six million (!) of them. I get the promise of hybrid vigor. Heterosis--the biologic term for hybrid payoff--is not guaranteed, though. Some hybrids never work out. Private-public computing clouds are in that category.

Keith Townsend says so in his recent "Why there's no compelling use case for hybrid cloud", and he's right. The original aim was that a modest private cloud could overflow its bursty loads to the unlimited capacity of the public cloud. The private cloud would form a less-expensive baseline, and peak demand could pay the higher costs of peak capacity...

Tintri Inc., today announced a new release of its Tintri Operating System and expanded orchestration and automation capabilities. These products simplify deployment and management of enterprise cloud for organizations and service providers. Tintri's web-services architecture offers Amazon-like agility and scale with the security and control of an enterprise cloud platform.

IT budgets continue to be redistributed from traditional IT infrastructure to the cloud. A recent IDC survey of 11,350 IT executives revealed that while three-year spend on public cloud is projected to grow 29.5 percent, the investment in private cloud (on-premise and hosted off-premise) will increase 51.5 percent. In the same timeframe, the budget for traditional IT is forecasted to fall 18.8 percent.

"More than one third of Tintri customers have built cloud infrastructures with Tintri. They trust Tintri to provide an agile application development environment for DevOps and/or a highly scalable and automated infrastructure for their mission critical applications," said Ken Klein, CEO and chairman of Tintri. "That's because only Tintri makes it possible for an organization to easily deploy and then tear down thousands of virtual machines in minutes, and for a cloud service provider to guarantee performance to their customers by isolating individual virtual machines and setting per-VM Quality of Service (QoS)."

Hillstone Networks, a leading provider of network security solutions, today announced that the Hillstone virtual firewall solution, CloudEdge, based on its Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) technology, is now available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace in standard and advanced editions. Azure Marketplace offers integrated tools, pre-built templates and managed services to make it easier to build and manage enterprise, mobile, web and Internet of Things (IoT) applications faster and more efficiently. The Hillstone virtual solution integrates with multiple security services, including firewall security, application identification and threat protection, to ensure security for cloud deployments.

Mojo Networks, a leader in secure, cloud-managed WiFi, announces a strategic relationship with WatchGuard Technologies, a leader in advanced network security, in which WatchGuard will license Mojo’s access point software, patented, award-winning WIPS, and cloud-based WiFi management technology to power its next-generation portfolio of Secure Wireless solutions. Through this partnership, Mojo’s access points and cloud managed WiFi extend their reach into the SMB and midmarket segments globally and WatchGuard is able to provide cutting-edge cloud managed WiFi solutions to its customer base.

The networked cloud is slowly emerging as the answer to any number of enterprise questions. In some cases, organizations deploy cloud networking technologies to more effectively manage applications as they migrate to the cloud. Other companies are easing into a networked cloud model as an efficiency measure because they lack the IT staff to manage their own infrastructure or the in-house security expertise to keep it secure.

Art Chernobrov, manager of identity access and messaging for Hyatt Hotels Corp., said Hyatt turned to cloud networking and management software to more effectively run networked communications between 60 hotels in China and the company's headquarters back in North America...

As managers face increasing pressure from stakeholders to make supply chains eco-friendly, companies are on the hunt for new and inexpensive tools, partners, or processes that can improve the sustainability of their operations. But according to a new study, one solution may already exist: Cloud computing could improve supply chains’ environmental performance while also cutting costs.

When firms move their data from in-house servers to the cloud, they can save money on maintaining IT infrastructure and storage. Hosting applications, information, and networks on the cloud, typically through a third-party service at a much lower cost than a physical setup, also allows companies to quickly analyze and disseminate data, loop in partners, and scale their technology needs to accommodate changing budget and business requirements...

If you’re confused by all this talk of “cloud computing”, you’re not alone. It’s one of those terms that everyone uses, but not a lot of people seem to know what it means. The term has become synonymous with the internet in recent times, and many are proclaiming its wonders and ability to save individuals and businesses a ton of money, time and stress. So … what is it? And how exactly does it work?

Rahul Chawla, tech mastermind from Technowand in Mitchell, has been helping local businesses replace their traditional infrastructure with cloud computing for years. “It’s the way of the future,” says Rahul. “Gone are the days of expensive servers, email exchange and software licenses that only last a few years. You don’t need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on anti-virus or Microsoft Office software. You don’t even really need to own a powerful computer anymore...

When I wrote a series of articles explaining How Cloud Computing Works several years ago, the phrase “cloud computing” — the practice of storing and processing data on remote servers that can be accessed online — was just starting to catch on. More people are familiar with the term today, though many still aren’t sure what it means. But for those concerned about the security of the cloud, a recent study could give us a glimpse into the future of detecting computer viruses and other malware.

First, the basics. Cloud computing isn’t that mysterious — it’s a relatively simple strategy. It involves networking computers, connecting the network to the internet and using those computers to provide services to people. Those services can be simple storage solutions, like an online photo album or filing system like Google Drive. Or they can involve leveraging the networked computers’ processors to do work a personal computer couldn’t handle. In any case, cloud computing can be summed up with the phrase “it’s all happening on someone else’s computer.”...

US software giant Oracle said Saturday that it has sealed its $9.3 billion acquisition of cloud computing company NetSuite. Oracle said that a majority of shares -- 53 percent -- owned by eligible stockholders in the vote had been tendered. The acquisition is to be completed Monday, the company said in a statement.

The takeover agreement was announced in late July at a price of $109 per share, but it attracted criticism because Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison and his family own a major stake in NetSuite of nearly 40 percent. Under conditions of the deal, the transaction had to be approved by a majority of small, independent NetSuite shareholders, which excluded Ellison...

There has been an expanding growth in the need for provision of security features for data, especially now that data is getting stored and shared on the cloud. This market is growing tremendously providing services to the data archiving segment which includes companies who store a great deal of sensitive and confidential information on their computer systems.

The need for protecting such data is vital and must not be lost or accessed by data thieves and hackers. Malicious use of company data can cause companies to suffer devastating losses in financial terms, reputation, and so many other facets of doing business. The question then becomes: why retain such a massive volume of information whereas it would be easier to do away with the information (managing all the data invokes cost implications)...

Huawei and the Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company (ADMA-OPCO), a major producer of oil and gas from the offshore areas of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, today jointly announced that ADMA-OPCO's Cloud Ready Data Center is now fully operational at the Huawei Global Energy Summit 2016 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Cloud Ready Data Center is expected to help ADMA-OPCO address the needs of long-distance transmission and processing of a massive volume of data during offshore oil exploration and production. The Cloud Ready Data Center will also enhance the security of critical business data and applications for ADMA-OPCO...

Hostway announces an agreement with Core dna to provide the computing infrastructure for Core dna’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that is used to build marketing, e-commerce, intranets and community portal solutions.

In addition, Hostway makes available for the first time the option to deploy Core dna on a dedicated private cloud for enterprise customers requiring high levels of security for compliance with regulations. Available now, these are custom configurations that are priced individually.

Veritas Technologies, a leader in information management, today announced Backup Exec 16, a significant update to its unified backup and recovery solution for mid-market organizations. Data in this market segment is expected to rise by 33 percent in the next three years, according to a recent survey. With budgets remaining flat and business expectations increasing for rapid deployment and return on IT services, mid-market companies are seeking more powerful, flexible, and trusted data protection solutions.

Efficient use of available resources will be crucial to avoid business disruption. Backup Exec 16 helps businesses address critical data protection challenges, covering all critical data across cloud, virtual and physical systems – regardless of where it resides. Organizations can also leverage the most current and scalable Microsoft infrastructure with Microsoft Azure, Windows Server 2016, and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016.

Dell EMC has announced availability of a new Dell EMC NetWorker with CloudBoost solution for added protection of enterprise applications running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as well as the extension of the industry-leadingi Data Domain protection storage platform to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).

Dell EMC is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver information technology as a service. The cloud is fundamental to this transformation. Through innovative products, services and partnerships, Dell EMC accelerates the journey to the cloud, helping IT departments to manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way.

NetWorker with CloudBoost provides a complete enterprise-grade backup solution for applications running on AWS. NetWorker with CloudBoost can run completely self-contained within an AWS environment and includes client-side optimized backups, inline de-duplication, encryption and compression with backup directly to Amazon S3.